


let me linger

by bioplast_hero



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU - Modern fantasy, Art Student Keith, Body Worship, Comfort, Fallen Angel, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, Melancholy, Naive/Virgin Shiro, Vers/Bottom Shiro, Wing Kink, angel shiro, protective keith, softe, trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26848924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioplast_hero/pseuds/bioplast_hero
Summary: Angels are supposed to remain aloof, to witness, nothing more. But Shiro can't just sit by and watch the boy's life be cut short in a senseless accident.He doesn't even hesitate. He still wouldn't, knowing what he knows now.Keith can't get it out of his head: something happened. Someone saved him. He recognizes it now, when the wind shifts without cause, and he wonders who thought his life was worth lifting a finger for.Keith doesn't believe in heaven, but he believes in Shiro.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 127





	let me linger

**Author's Note:**

> For [Scoops!](https://twitter.com/yawarakaiarts) They asked for guardian angel Shiro beefcake :") and if that isn't a great idea I don't know what is.
> 
> Loosely (very loosely) playing off of the angels in _Wings of Desire_ by Wim Wenders. If you've seen it, you may recognize some aspects.
> 
> If you dislike ***surprises*** of the body landscape variety, you might want to skip the erotic bits. Who's to say what angel bodies are like? Bodies are diverse and fun to explore.
> 
> Beta: [Nrem](https://twitter.com/nrem511) ♡ thank you darling!
> 
> The art in the fic is mine.

Eternity is a shapeless thing, unending sameness. Shiro believes he might feel something about that, but it’s distant. Angels aren’t renowned for feeling. It has always been this way.

Humans, though. Humans feel many things from moment to moment, and sometimes all at once. The shapes of their lives lend colour, interest.

Passion. Fury. Discontent. Hope. The simple absorption in their present, future, and past.

Shiro wonders what it’s like to feel a weight within.

He’s been watching this one. Dark hair, small, quiet. A thoughtful boy, strong and sensitive. And artistic; the youth walks to his classes, scraping worn shoes on grimy pavement, always painting murals in his mind. He sees the morning light strike a streetlight and there are colours there that only he sees.

No one notices this boy. It seems that no one knows him. Shiro wants to know him. And he can, in his way, without being known in return. It’ll have to do.

Crossing the road, the sports car doesn’t see him, doesn’t yield. The boy does not see it coming.

_No._

Shiro moves without thinking. He steps to the boy’s side and, for an instant, materialises. He folds his arms around the youth in a flash of immeasurable light. 

Like a little bird thrumming between his hands, Shiro hears the boy’s heart, feels his gasp and the tension rippling through his small frame. 

It’s but a blink in the history of creation. 

But for Shiro, it changes everything.

In the October chill, Keith feels warmth permeating everything. He feels the warmth even in his bones. 

He must be dying. 

The road is gone. The cars are gone, especially that one car he saw too late. It’s just Keith, eyes shut against— what? He’s afraid of what he’ll see. 

Arms, slung around his back. Strong and sure, a hug like none but his father could give. 

He must be dying. 

Wind, tugging and whirling around him. There hasn’t been any wind today. This is more like the beat of a hawk’s wing in the air. Then he’s enfolded, a brush of feathers, and the air stands still.

This must be death.

Keith blinks awake at hospital. The light is hazy, haloed, but that must be the splitting headache. It’s slow, the act of remembering, of making up his mind. This isn’t death. The nurses have tired faces, checking his vitals, his reflexes, his memory. The only one that smiles has a ginger moustache. He says the doctor will be in. 

“What do you remember?” the woman asks. She’s the doctor. She looks tired, too, but wound tighter with forced patience. 

Keith’s voice rasps with disuse. “I was… on my way to uni. Crossing Stretford.”

“And?”

“And… someone saved me.”

She makes a face. An unfriendly one, or unimpressed. “That car exploded.”

Keith’s head throbs as his eyes widen. “It- what?”

“The car that struck you. It exploded.”

Keith’s face falls. He feels terrible, for some reason he can’t explain. It wasn’t his fault… was it? “Was anyone hurt?”

“Surprisingly, no,” she says, almost as though she’s disappointed. “Not even you.”

Keith doesn’t understand. “But, why am I here?”

She eyes his chart. She clearly doesn’t need to. She doesn’t want to look at him. “You’ve been out since yesterday. No brain damage. You don’t appear to have amnesia.”

Keith still doesn’t understand why the doctor seems so… angry. 

“Have I done something wrong?” he asks. 

Her expression is an unreadable mask. “That,” she huffs, standing to leave, “is between you and God.”

Shiro expects a reaction, and he gets one. Not the passionate uproar of mortals, but the cold judgement of heaven.

They repeat themselves. They often do. Shiro doesn’t need the reminder; he knows the dogma well. Angels are to look, gather, preserve, testify. Only this.

Remain insubstantial. Remain aloof. Keep the word.

Shiro broke the law, but he doesn’t feel wrong in his choice. He saved someone. It meant something. Didn't it? Is this what it means to be moved?

The host of angels know his mind. They call it his _conflict._ Shiro isn’t conflicted. He has questions.

Heaven knows how to lie, if only to itself.

Keith peeks past the curtains, dreading and also fully expecting what he’ll find. Reporters have been hounding his flat for days now. He’s been a sound student on the whole, if it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped since the… what should he call it?

Since it happened.

Keith drops the curtain with a sigh, huffing a breath that rustles his fringe. He won’t be going to class today, either.

And that is tomorrow-Keith’s problem, how he is supposed to manage this term without those lectures and studio hours. For today, at least, he can’t be bothered if it means all these people and their needling questions.

Keith wasn’t always so reticent. He wonders sometimes if his old man would be shocked to see him now, avoiding his problems, not facing them head-on how he was taught. Though Keith has his thoughts on how well that strategy panned out in dad’s case.

His father was a firefighter, a hero, and Keith lost everything the night they called him ‘hero’ on the news. Maybe he’s still hurt that his dad went to save that family at the expense of _his_ family.

He remembers adults asking him questions then, too— crowding close, pressing Keith for words he didn’t have. Trauma muted him.

The first words back in Keith’s vocabulary were apologies, capitulations, and wishes that weren’t often heeded. The local authority appointed carers who were more keen on fostering payments than the welfare of sullen pre-teens they disapproved of in the first place.

Some homes were better than others, but in all of them Keith learned to take up less space. Keith went inward— brought worlds to life in his notebooks with the tip of his pen. It felt like a violation every time one of his carers pinched one and looked inside. In fact, all of the worst fights he had with his fosterers were about what he must be ‘hiding’ in his sketchbooks. But they weren’t _theirs._ Drawing was the only thing that was just Keith’s.

 _Well that was then,_ Keith thinks a bit smugly, putting the kettle on and pretending there isn’t a news crew waiting on the landing for an interview he has no intention of giving.

Things did get better. He managed on his own from age sixteen, and applied to courses with a proper portfolio, even. He was always taken with fine art— drawing, _painting—_ but architecture meant a good career and he wasn’t bad at maths.

He made it to university all on his own. And, barring any more traffic disasters, Keith means to finish what he started.

Now he has his creaky Moss Side flat all to himself, where he sometimes pretends the chemist sign beneath his window is bright moonlight. The kitchenette is cramped but it has all the basics. His neighbours wave to him on the pavement and mostly keep to themselves, which is all to his liking. He doesn’t need anyone looking after him.

He misses his dad, though. That’s who he thinks of when he remembers strong arms around him in the road the other morning, and a silence too complete and profound. Feeling safe and unseasonably warm.

 _What, you believe in ghosts, now?_ Keith mocks himself.

 _No._ But he believes the arms were real, somehow.

Shiro leans at the counter in the kitchen of the boy he saved. He’s been here before, watching the youth draw, sketching on great big pads of newsprint with attentive strokes. Lingering nearby and wondering about his life. 

But it’s different now. Now Shiro  worries about the trouble the young man faces, since the incident. Shiro wishes his society would just  forget about the flash of divine light that no mortal can explain. And yet they try.

The boy is drawing a portrait tonight. It’s someone else in his building, an older man he bumped into at the letterboxes while still avoiding the cameras out on the landing. Keith remembers his face in great detail, shading creases around his smiling eyes and tight mouth with great fidelity. The man appears cranky and kind, and both are true.

Shiro likes the way the boy sees others, even if they don’t see him half the time. He’s attentive, curious, kind. He thinks of others more than himself. Everything heaven is meant to stand for.

The angels said he should not have intervened. The boy could be in heaven even now, like so many others— too soon, perhaps, but… 

Heaven isn’t meant to intercede. To decide who suffers, who thrives, and who blinks out.

Shiro looks at the boy and feels he did only what he must. He misses the certainty he once had. But in its cracks, hope takes root and grows.

The youth shifts on his stool, eyes down and slowly turning to glance toward the kitchen. Toward Shiro.

There’s no way he made a sound. He isn’t visible to mortals like this.

And yet the boy is looking his way.

The flat was the cheapest Keith could find; he isn’t fussy. But from the rooftop, the views aren’t bad. The setting sun flares gold and lights the bridge to city centre like a golden harp. He turns to face the dying light, trying to commit the colours and cloud textures to memory. 

He’s back in classes. He still hasn’t commented to the press, but his little miracle is old news now, anyway. The papers said _Act of God._

Bollocks.

And why would God save him now, anyway? After everything. 

No, it was another fluke like the rest of his life, holding no profound meaning. He tells himself that, but Keith keeps thinking about it. Keeps feeling the rush of that bone-deep warmth that he knows doesn’t match the season’s chill. And standing on the roof, wind strong in his face, he’ll feel the wind change— feel it waft at his back and prickle at the nape of his neck, like… breath.

“Hello?” Keith whispers.

He doesn’t try to look. He never can see what he feels, anyway. He watches the sun sink below the horizon and doesn’t feel alone.

Shiro would go inside, were it anyone else. He could hover right over most mortals’ shoulders and they’d be none the wiser. No one ever notices his kind. But after the boy felt him once, it seems he’s always on the lookout. Alert, watchful, sensitive. Shiro keeps to the window ledge now when he lingers.

Yawning, the boy puts down his drawing pencil, peeling off the fingerless gloves he wears most of the time. The render he’s working on will wait for another day, a design for one of his courses.

He stands and lifts his shirt overhead.

Shiro freezes, watching as the youth stretches his arms in the air, arching his back. He scratches an itch over his bare ribs. Shiro stares, transfixed, as Keith reaches for his waistband.

Shiro does look away, then, though he has to ask himself why. He’s seen countless mortals undress thousands of times. The social moires of privacy don’t include his kind. But it’s different, isn’t it? It feels different, to see him, knowing he _wants_ to see. He won’t do it.

The lamp flicks out, drawing Shiro’s eyes back inside. He sees the young man stretched out under his thin blanket in the faint streetlight.

It’s different, knowing he wants to see, no way of knowing if it’s wanted.

“Is there someone there?” Keith asks the morning air. It should be cold. There’s frost on the concrete beneath his feet and along the ledge overlooking the lane. 

It’s never as cold as it should be, anymore, when Keith comes up to the roof by himself. He comes every day now.

“I bet you’re not supposed to talk to me,” Keith wonders aloud. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I like that you are.”

Keith leans on his elbows, stretching his spine. His back pangs from hunching over his latest render, but with half term soon he’ll be able to let up a bit. He should probably get back to it.

“I never meant to interfere—”

The voice is soft but _close_ and takes Keith completely by surprise. He rounds on the man so fast he sees stars, streaks of gentle light— no. No, the man he sees is made of... light. 

“Please,” the being holds up his hands. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Keith doesn’t answer him. He’s forgotten how. The light is shifting, fluttering, never settling— but there is a man there, Keith is sure of it. Beautiful. Strong jaw, hair dark with longer pieces shifting and swaying in his eyes, like downy black feathers. His eyes are silver-grey and he’s brushed all over with gold, like he’s made from the light of many stars.

Keith is so rapt, he can’t take him all in. His slow, mortal mind finds the stranger a piece at a time. The thoughtful look on his face and the strong lines of his powerful body, the night-sky tunic he wears. Wings, arching over his shoulders and dappled white and black, catching a whip of wind that doesn’t touch this world. Wind from another sky. 

“You are not afraid,” the man remarks, a grin tugging the corner of his mouth. “That’s a good start.”

“Wh- who are you?”

“Shirogane,” he answers. The name sounds like bells ringing in the distance. “But, you can call me Shiro.”

That certainly doesn’t answer Keith’s question. 

Or does it?

“Shiro,” Keith answers, remembering his voice, and belatedly his manners. “My name’s Keith.” He holds out his hand.

Shiro looks at the hand, and Keith almost has time enough to pull it back. But the other moves before he can. The sight makes him woozy, the light sliding through the other like a prism, too much movement. It feels a little like losing his mind. Then the warmth of his touch, too warm like blood pooling. Keith remembers how he thought he was dying.

Far from it, it seems.

Shiro’s hand engulfs his and hangs on. It steadies Keith, holds him up when the strange wind and shimmer of light are overwhelming. Keith wants to shut his eyes, but he can’t bear to miss this. He might never see him again.

“You saved me,” Keith says.

Shiro hums. “Can you forgive me?”

Keith blinks at him, uncomprehending. The sun is rising behind his wings, but Shiro is brighter than all the sun’s effort. “But- I’m thanking you.”

Shiro’s expression looks uncertain. “If you insist.”

Keith hasn’t seen or felt his watcher in weeks. He doesn’t believe in… angels, or God, or whatever. He still doesn’t. But he believes in Shiro. 

He hopes every day to see him again. 

Keith is very careful crossing the road. He thought he was, before, but not like this. Wary, anxious. Maybe a brush with death will do that to anyone. Shiro saved him… whatever, whoever Shiro is, he thought Keith worth saving. 

Keith goes to the roof day and night. He gives the angel every opportunity, should he wish to meet him again. But Shiro must have said what he wanted to say, seen all he wanted to see, because the chill is biting and the wind doesn’t twist like it used to. 

Keith stands over his desk at a large canvas, secured on a kind of easel he rigged from his skip diving. Keith has been painting this one for days. It’s not for his course; he’s well past all of that, ahead on his work. His brush has been on fire recently. No, this is just for himself. He needs this one. 

It’s the angel, Shiro. Keith isn’t sure how to paint someone made of light, but he knows he has to try. His sketchbooks are bursting with him, his obsession. 

He can’t explain it, really. Could Keith be going mad? Raving like a lunatic who’s seen the face of God? Keith doesn’t think so— but the flutter of craft paper on his studio walls and all the taped-up charcoal studies and strewn notebooks on the floor might all say otherwise. 

Little by little, into the small hours of the morning, Keith paints in swirls of light and dark that look a little like the awe he felt.

Keith is struggling to capture his face. Not that he can’t picture it; he’ll remember it for the rest of his life. No, he’s struggling to get it right. The depthless eyes, like the brightening sky right after rain, and so kind. The smile, golden and hopeful and almost shy.

Keith has used more paint on this face than he can honestly afford, but he keeps scraping it away to try again. He’ll work another job. He’ll buy more paint. As much as it takes.

There’s something that is too… symmetrical about it all. There’s something about Shiro that pulls Keith’s world askew and it’s _missing._ He picks up his brush and tries again.

Something rustles, although maybe it isn’t out loud— perhaps only along his senses, primed for the brush of wingbeat and the coiling warmth of bottled suns.

Keith turns and sees him as he never thought possible, splayed out on the floor of his studio. Shiro’s limp form drapes over notebooks filled with his likeness.

“No, no,” Keith murmurs, mindless and hurrying, falling to his knees by Shiro’s side where he looks hurt, his right arm severed past the ball of his shoulder. His tunic is torn open, baring the planes of his chest and one ruddy nipple.

“Shiro?” Keith gasps, turning his face by the jaw. His bangs are a shock of white hanging in his eyes, caressing a fresh, young scar across the bridge of his nose. His light is dimmer— less starlight, more moonlight— and Keith thinks he will dissolve into atoms on the spot if Shiro’s light goes out.

But the angel is warm under his hands, with creases around his eyes and laboured breath and— Shiro blinks his eyes open.

This close, Keith’s body pulses with shock at the second ring of his irises, pools within pools of swirling silver, shot through with steel and gold. There are universes forming and dissolving in his eyes.

The angel coughs, and Keith’s stomach swoops with the thought of how his hands are cupping the angel’s jaw and laying over his heart. Reckless, he realises, but he can’t let go. He won’t.

Shallow breaths grow deeper, steadier. “Keith,” he sighs.

“Sh- Shiro, what happened?”

Shiro’s eyes droop closed. “I broke the rules.”

Keith’s stomach churns. What kind of heaven _is_ this? None Keith will ever understand.

“God did this to you?”

Shiro startles under his touch. “God?” He coughs and shakes his head. “No, the others. Those who keep the law. Like… I did, once.”

Keith has too many questions. But Shiro is here, right now. That’s all that matters.

“Can I help you?”

Shiro blinks up at him with effort, his eyes endless and sweet. “You already have.”

Shiro wakes in the boy’s bed. He’s unfamiliar with the feeling; he’s never slept before.

It’s not dawn, yet. The apartment is quiet, the windows shut tight against the chill but no match for the draft. The light is dim blue and still, like hesitation.

Keith isn’t there in the bed.

But he is across the room, huddled in an armchair with dawn on his face. The youth is small enough to fit easily, but still his legs spill over the armrest, cheek tucked against the seat back. He’s huddled down in a hooded sweatshirt.

Shiro rises from the mattress, letting the thin blankets fall from his shoulders. He doesn’t need them, never did, but the thought warms him immeasurably: Keith put him in bed and tucked him in.

It is disorienting, reaching and gathering up the duvet without his right hand. He could manifest one, had he the strength to spare, but even then he’s not sure that he would. He won’t hide from it; he means to remember the choices he made that led him here.

Shiro moves quietly. He needn’t walk the distance, but he does— eager to feel the floorboards beneath the balls of his feet. It’s all so new. Gingerly, he drapes the blanket over Keith’s body, piled at his shoulders. He needs them more.

Keith wakes at the light touch.

“Sorry,” Shiro says. He wishes he had something more to offer than his apologies. “I thought you were cold.”

Keith looks up at him and doesn’t stop looking.

“Not with you near,” he says.

Shiro smiles down at him, helpless with the force of it. “Then I was too far, for you were shivering.”

“Oh,” Keith answers. He shoves his hood back and rubs his eyes, then looks Shiro over. It’s a different looking thanbefore, assessing him.

“You seem better. Are you… healing?”

Shiro considers this. “Yes, I suppose I am. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I…” Shiro pauses, studying Keith’s wicked smile. He is… teasing. The feeling tingles through Shiro’s now-corporeal frame, something new and wonderful. “Well. I do suppose I deserve that.”

Keith laughs. And Shiro is sure that he’s never done that before, made someone laugh.

“Keith? Will you show me how to make tea?”

There is an angel in Keith’s kitchen. Apparently he didn’t hallucinate that part. Or he’s still at it.

The angel wants a cup of tea.

First, Keith is determined to get him into some clothes, because the torn tunic is both tragic and distracting. He pulls his most oversize pair of jogging bottoms from the wardrobe, which he finds still pull very tight around the angel’s hips. Keith stares at the shirt in his hands and realises he’ll have to cut it for his wings, or something.

“It’s alright,” Shiro says. “Unless you would really prefer.”

Faced with the full glory of the angel’s sculpted torso, Keith resigns himself to distraction. If Shiro doesn’t want to cover up, he frankly doesn’t want that, either.

Shiro blinks down at himself, seeming pleased with the pocket he’s just discovered. He looks so comfortable. The white tangle of his hair sways as he turns to see Keith’s clock.

“You won’t be late, will you?”

The sun is coming up, the day underway. But what was Keith planning to do, anyway, come morning? He wasn’t about to go to Friday’s class, with an injured angel lounging back at his flat, now was he?

“You are missing your studies,” Shiro says.

Keith just looks at him, wondering if his thoughts are transparent to angels, or if he’s just that easy to read.

“I don’t think I could concentrate on that right now,” Keith says simply.

Shiro only nods. “You are living with the consequences of my actions, Keith.”

“No, hey,” Keith closes the distance, pushing his wild hair out of his eyes. “I’m glad you are here.”

Shiro’s eyes are even more stunning in the morning, hurricanes inside hurricanes. Keith might need to work on his staring.

“Tea,” he says at length, shaking himself.

Keith potters around the tiny kitchen with Shiro trailing after him. It should be hard to manoeuvre with a very broad angel in the way, but Shiro anticipates his movement. He’s careful, graceful, unobtrusive, like it’s a dance they’ve done before. Maybe they have done.

“Do you always watch over people?” Keith wonders aloud when the silence gets too loud again. “Protect people?”

“Watching, yes,” Shiro hedges. Keith looks at him, waiting, hoping for more. Shiro shakes his head slightly. “Protecting… no, you are the first.”

“But why?”

There’s something about the hunch of Shiro’s wings that looks shy. Keith wants to know what makes angels hesitate— what makes them blush. Keith can’t peel his eyes from Shiro’s softly-flushed face.

“I was curious about you.” It’s a simple answer, but revealing.

“In what way?”

“I… wished I could know you. I’d never wanted that before.” Shiro purses his lips in thought. “I think it’s the most important thing I’ve ever felt.”

Keith forgets to breathe. The kettle is boiling and he has to shake himself once again to fetch it. Keith quickly fills the two mugs because he hasn’t the faintest idea what to say.

“Only a bit,” Shiro starts to say, already seeing it’s too late.

Keith blinks. “But you... wanted tea? Wait. Do you even eat? Drink?”

“Neither,” Shiro cracks a smile. “Ideal houseguest?”

It startles a laugh out of Keith. “Guess so,” he says in a daze. He doesn’t question it. Shiro can be a _houseguest._ He can be whatever he wants.

_I wished I could know you._

Shiro is blushing and God he is beautiful. “I just always wanted to know what it was like. A cup of tea.”

Keith hands him the larger mug of the two, the one he usually favours. “Well, let’s get you the full experience, then.”

Keith’s flat is outfitted for a solitary life. He offers Shiro his one plush chair and reaches for the one hard stool that wobbles— but Keith never seems to notice, usually perched there when he’s bent over a drawing pad or sat in front of a canvas.

Like the ones all around them. Everywhere, Shiro’s form, his face, his wings.

It isn’t that Shiro didn’t notice them before, or the painting of his likeness propped up on the bureau. He didn’t know what to say about it. He knows how the sight of the divine has affected mortals through the ages, how many of them had gone mad.

He looks at Keith and wonders if he’s hurt the boy beyond repair, tangled him in something too far beyond his comprehension. He has to push the thought away, because regardless, they are here now.

But he loves Keith’s work, and loves the feeling of being seen by Keith. Keith looks at him over his teacup and Shiro feels it— that kind of seeing that takes him as layers of colour, a sheen on his skin here, a sweep of brow there.

“It’s alright,” Shiro says after a while. “If you want to draw what you see.”

Keith freezes like he’s been caught.

“I… used to watch you draw and paint.”

“You did?"

Shiro nods, sipping at the warm, bitter liquid, fascinated by the flavour. Bracing, he thinks. “I’m just saying it would be alright with me.”

After a long pause, Keith tugs a notebook from beneath the prior day’s post he’s strewn there, opening to a new page with a red drawing pencil.

When Keith starts, he doesn’t stop for a long time, but it’s welcome. Shiro nurses his cup to the last drop and feels Keith’s gaze lick over his every feature.

After an eternity, Shiro knows a little something about patience.

Having never slept before in his life, it seems a bit off how that’s all Shiro wants to do on his first day of exile.

After nodding off in the chair, Keith steered him back into bed. Sleep claimed him before too long.

Waking in the afternoon, Shiro peeks his eyes open to find that Keith has pulled the stool to the foot of the bed. He has a large drawing pad over his knees and a sharp pencil scratching in fine, elaborate detail.

Shiro endeavours not to move from the spot, but he must give himself away somehow.

Keith huffs a laugh. “I’m not your keeper.” His eyes are so bright beneath dark lashes. The boy is in his element now, deep in his drawing.

“I am not complaining of being kept,” Shiro answers. Still, he relents and arches into a stretch that feels impossibly good. Shiro never knew he’d delight in such a thing: to ache, as mortals do, and the dull roar of a good stretch.

Keith’s breath catches. When Shiro settles against his wings and looks back at him, Keith’s eyes are fixed hard on the sheet before him with a very telling blush.

He’s flustering the boy, apparently. Affection swirls in his chest, all these new feelings.

“What are you thinking of?” Shiro asks gently. He tries not to tease.

Keith looks puzzled. “So… you don’t hear my thoughts?”

Shiro laughs. “No. That sounds lovely, though.” Keith swallows and stares. And suddenly Shiro can hardly bear not knowing. “I wish I could. Will you tell me?”

He’s quiet for long enough that it seems no answer will come.

“Beautiful,” Keith murmurs, very hushed. But Keith’s eyes lock on his and there’s surety there, too. “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.”

Shiro can feel the jagged mark marring his face from how it pulls when he smiles. He feels Keith looking at him as he is, seeing every part of him with equal wonder.

“I can’t believe that you’re here, in my place, wearing my clothes, I just—” Keith cuts himself off.

“Is it a bother?”

Keith startles, his jaw opening and shutting silently before he manages words. “No,” he croaks. “You really have no idea, do you?”

Shiro doesn’t have an answer for that. He gestures to the drawing pad in Keith’s lap. “May I see?”

“I… usually don’t show unfinished work. But then, I guess you’ve seen plenty, haven’t you?” Shiro nods, so Keith hands him the drawing.

Shiro doesn’t think much about his appearance usually, until he’s seeing it through Keith’s eyes. Stretched out in sleep on the rumpled bed, the pose is dynamic, his spine bowed like a cat, wings splayed and pillowed beneath him. Keith has taken great care with the detail in his wings, mottled black to white, feathers soft and natural, almost playful. Shiro’s face looks cherubic in sleep, hugging himself with his one arm, the scar somehow delicate over the bridge of his nose. It’s a delightful contrast with the youth’s modern clothes hugging his hips and not quite covering the full length of his legs, shapeless and shapely all at once.

Shiro gets lost in looking at the form of his hand, curled over his own ribs in sleep, and the arch of one foot in the foreground. He’s never seen the bottom of his foot but he’s sure Keith got it right.

“What do you think?” Keith asks after a while of Shiro’s silence.

“It’s wonderful, Keith. I’m sorry, I’m not used to getting to actually say it,” he chuckles, taking in the boy’s wide eyes. “You have remarkable talent.”

Keith scratches nervous fingers through his hair. “I think the muse helps.”

“I’m not losing my mind, am I?”

They stand on the roof together, a bright Saturday morning. It’s icy and clear. Keith never needs a jacket around Shiro, who’s wearing even less. Even when his wings beat the air, it warms before it brushes Keith’s skin.

Shiro is looking at him very seriously, rings of dawn light in his eyes.

“Would you… be able to trust my words, if you were?”

Keith laughs. “I suppose not. But- I do trust you. Maybe I just want you to say it.”

“What you see is real,” Shiro answers, wind tugging at his white locks and the long primary feathers. “But you know that. You have to trust yourself, Keith.”

Keith feels a blush dust his cheeks. “You sound like my old man. Do- do you know him?”

Shiro’s smile aches. “I wish I did.”

Keith shakes his head. “I really didn’t think so. It’s just, you know. Dad would say things like that. I thought- I thought maybe it was him, that morning you saved me. The way you held me, felt familiar.”

“Maybe it was. Familiar.”

Keith stares at him, uncomprehending.

“Maybe love just feels like love.”

“What?” Keith gasps.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro sighs. “I don’t mean to shock you. My kind are too direct, I’m not accustomed. Forgive me.”

Keith is rooted to the spot. “You… you love me?”

“I chose you over heaven,” Shiro answers quietly and it slides up Keith’s spine like the point of a knife. “Maybe that’s all I know of love, but- I can learn.”

“Shiro,” Keith breathes his name. He’s moving without realising, stepping into the angel’s embrace. Shiro pulls him in, folding Keith against his chest where he clings and shudders for breath. And there’s the feeling again, when Shiro’s wings wrap over him and the air doesn’t move at all anymore.

“Shiro,” Keith struggles to say. “I’m afraid to need you. If you can’t stay.”

“Where would I go?” Shiro asks. And Keith doesn’t know, he just— it’s just they haven’t talked about it. He assumed Shiro would be gone one day, and he would just have to go on…

Keith pulls back to find Shiro’s eyes, startled by how raw they look.

“I wasn’t supposed to stop the car.”

“I know, but—”

“I wasn’t supposed to return to you. To… show myself. To give you my name.”

Keith’s gut churns. He suspected, of course, that Shiro had gotten himself into trouble over Keith. But it still stings. It isn’t fair— even heaven isn’t fair.

Keith should have been more careful, shouldn’t have pushed like he did. He wanted too much.

“Don’t get hurt over me, please,” Keith swallows, eyes prickling as he pushes back from Shiro’s chest. “I can see to myself, I’ll be fine—”

“Keith.” Shiro’s strong, warm hand settles over the ball of his shoulder. “I did what I had to. I regret nothing. How could I?”

Tripping into his eyes again, Keith falls mute. Shiro studies him and then makes a small sound.

“And it’s more than that now, isn’t it? The kingdom I swore to uphold…” Shiro starts and stops himself again, frowning.

“What?”

“If it isn’t fate, isn’t purposeful, isn’t _intended…_ is it all just chaos?”

Keith’s jaw hangs slack.

“You mean… you don’t believe anymore?”

Shiro looks at him and the light trapped in his eyes is a little brighter than the moment before, more convicted. “I believe in you.”

Keith goes to the shop while Shiro stays back home. As much as he’s used to being a bit of a hermit, Keith finds himself wishing he could bring Shiro around with him, show him things. Not that the angel hasn’t seen, well, everything. But Keith knows he wants to _live it._ That’s different.

Instead, Keith tries to decide what he can bring back special for Shiro that he can afford along with the staples. Chocolate? Berries? Ice cream? Keith looks a bit mournfully at options, knowing he can’t really splash out but wanting some of everything for Shiro to try.

 _He said he’s staying,_ Keith reminds himself, still disbelieving. That means there will be time.

Won’t Shiro get sick of the inside of Keith’s flat?

He can’t think of that now, selecting a couple of small chocolates to be on his way. Shiro doesn’t really eat, but he can taste. He loves to taste.

“It’s you!” the cashier says. “The kid from the news.” So he recognises Keith. The bloke looks to be his age, broad shoulders and a dark, warm complexion. Keith’s not sure why he’s the ‘kid’ all of a sudden, but he is small. He shrugs it off. The guy’s shop badgereads ‘Hunk.’

“Wow, so. Did you meet one?”

“One… what?”

“An angel?” Hunk asks with an encouraging smile.

Keith feels a cold sweat at his neck. He really hasn’t been reading the papers, and he realises now that he _should._ Maybe someone saw something. They have to be careful.

“Is that what they’re saying now?”

“Naw, nothing like that,” Hunk dismisses the idea with a wave of the hand. For a moment, Keith thinks his irises make a second ring around his pupil, like a trick of the light. “Just a feeling I had, I guess.”

“Uh huh,” Keith agrees, dubious. The cashier wishes him a good day with an earnest smile and starts seeing to the next customer.

Keith thinks about it on the walk home. He has so many questions. Are there others like Shiro in the city? Does Shiro know them?

Taking two stairs at a time, he’s at his flat in no time. Keith finds Shiro in the kitchen, still bare-chested and wearing those jogging bottoms, keeping the November chill at bay with the warmth of his smile. He’s making Keith tea, his new favourite trick.

“Keith,” Shiro sighs his name. Keith feels caught in his gravity, moving to his side. He sets the shopping bag down and Shiro reaches for him, pulling him close.

It’s like living in a dream, or a movie, anything but Keith’s life. Though, if this were a movie, he’d get a kiss, wouldn’t he? If this were Keith’s dream, they would definitely be kissing.

 _Kiss me,_ Keith thinks. _Kiss me kiss me kiss me._

It seems the angel was being truthful that he can’t hear his thoughts.

The hug is strong and sure and Keith feels it’s almost like kissing.

Night is falling when Keith emerges from a shower, dressed for bed and still towelling off his hair. Shiro watches him move about, tidying where he doesn’t need to.

He seems uncertain whether he’s sleeping in the chair again tonight. Shiro hopes not. He thinks of hugging Keith, feeling himself on fire at every touch. He wants all the touches Keith will give him.

From here, the low lamp at the bedside barely lights the planes of Keith’s face. Shiro sits at the edge of the mattress while Keith hesitates.

“Please,” Shiro finally says, pulling Keith’s eyes to him with a silent snap. “I… hate to be so far from you. Is that normal?”

Keith makes a sound, something strained and honest. But he comes to sit by his side, thigh to thigh. Shiro settles his wing at Keith’s back and watches the boy shudder.

“What are we?” Keith asks.

Shiro thinks. “I was hoping you would tell me,” he shrugs, and Keith laughs, tipping his face down to Shiro’s shoulder. The damage is still a bit fresh and Shiro relishes the strange ache of pressure there, feeling real and solid in the here and now.

He dips his head down, angling to see Keith’s face. He can’t get enough of looking at him. Keith pulls up to meet him.

“I don’t know what we are,” Shiro tells him, “only that I am yours. If you’ll have me.”

Keith’s eyes widen, shimmering. “Shiro,” he whispers. It’s hardly a sound, but Shiro hears him perfectly.

Keith surges forward, upward, searching with his mouth, pleading. The answer is yes, every time. _Yes, Keith. Yes._

The angel’s lips are hot, almost scalding. Keith seeks the flame like a moth and doesn’t care how reckless it is. There is nothing but right here and right now, his own heaven.

“Keith,” Shiro sighs his name around the shape of Keith’s teeth nipping his lip. Keith kisses him deeper, tasting his tongue. The angel tastes a bit like tea and a bit like chocolate, and that is charming in a whole other way.

He tips Shiro back onto the bed, pillowed on the great spread of his wings, and straddles his hips. He trails kisses down the angel’s neck, sucking at his collarbone, feeling Shiro’s hand cupping his bottom.

It takes absolutely all of Keith’s willpower to not grind down desperately, mindlessly seeking friction. But he’s determined to show Shiro how cherished he is.

Shiro’s breath is coming fast, hot puffs of air as he sighs into kisses and squirms ecstatically at every touch. His whole body is a sensitive instrument and it has never been played, Keith realises.

“Sensitive, aren’t you,” Keith whispers at Shiro’s ear. Shiro groans, chasing Keith’s lips as he moves to kiss along Shiro’s jaw, pawing over his ribs. Shiro pants at Keith’s ear. His wings shudder around them, a soft swirl of wind that is all Shiro’s doing.

Keith’s hand wanders down to grip Shiro’s thigh. Keith loves the firm muscle, wants to trace all the lines of him, but he feels the angel tense beneath that touch.

“Is this okay?”

“Nngh yes,” Shiro grits out, holding Keith’s backside even harder. He doesn’t say what made him nervous, but Keith won’t rush him.

“I want to touch you,” Shiro says with a shiver. “Please, Keith. Can I?”

Keith’s eyes say he’ll give him anything, but especially that. He pushes himself up to his knees and starts to undress. He takes his time, moving slowly with the dim light of a fading sky behind the shape of his body.

Shiro wants to cry. He’s never felt so much, so deeply. Keith wants his eyes on him and it’s a gift. So he looks.

Keith drops his shirt to the floor and slowly slips his trousers from his hips, pushing his pants down with them to expose his body. There’s a tangle of dark hair at the base of his weeping cock. He’s such a handsome sight.

Shiro shifts on the bed in invitation, beckoning Keith to lie down with him, pillowed against his wing at his right. The downy feathers tickle the back of Keith’s ribs, making him shudder. He nuzzles closer to Shiro’s warmth.

Cupping his face, Shiro gives him a deep kiss, hand sliding down over Keith’s chest. There are wispy hairs dotting his pecs and Shiro wonders absently how fine Keith will look when he’s older, coming into himself in new ways. Shiro’s thoughts are like this, everywhere and nowhere. The texture of Keith’s skin absorbs Shiro’s senses, smooth everywhere but for the jut of his nipple. Keith is perspiring, skin hot and shining as Shiro takes his time to feel and feel.

Keith makes a heady sound as Shiro’s attention travels downward, petting over his abs and smoothing his palm down Keith’s length, slicking the path for his hand to slide back up and down again.

“Wow, Keith,” he gasps, bent over Keith’s mouth. He loves the weight of Keith’s cock, solid in his hand, and the way the boy writhes, trying to contain all his sounds.

“Tell me. How does that feel?”

Keith’s mouth hangs open wordlessly, his eyes screwed tight as Shiro moves again. He can’t seem to answer, fingers gripping the long feathers beneath his weight like he might grip the bed. Keith’s expression is exquisite pleasure-pain, and Shiro finds himself unsettled by it. He slows his strokes and nudges Keith’s cheek with his nose.

“Keith?” he asks. The boy blinks up at him, his eyes shining. “Please, I- don’t know how to do this,” Shiro admits.

Keith’s hands fly to Shiro’s shoulders, pulling him down for more kisses. “It’s perfect, Shiro,” he grunts against the angel’s lips. “I swear. However you touch me is perfect.”

Shiro can see his pleasure, he won’t deny that. He can’t really explain where the fear came from, so many new feelings. He just… doesn’t want to ruin it. He wants it to be right for Keith.

“When you didn’t answer…”

“I was overwhelmed,” Keith kisses the bridge of his nose. “That’s how it works. You can… overwhelm me.”

“Can I?”

Keith’s eyes are gentle. “So, so easily.”

Shiro strokes up with his hand again, thumb playing over the slit where Keith’s cock leaks. The boy whimpers.

“Like this?”

“Yes yes like this, please—”

Shiro captures his mouth, sliding his tongue past the seam of his lips as Keith did before. He kisses hungrily, pumping Keith’s cock faster, twisting his wrist as he feels Keith respond to that, too. Cushioned on one wing, Shiro bends the other down to brush along Keith’s side as he nibbles the boy’s ear, his own breath coming faster as he tastes the sheen of sweat on Keith’s skin.

Keith babbles, moments from spilling in Shiro’s grip. His hips rock up, thrusting into the curl of Shiro’s fist. Keith wants more, it seems, more, until he’s pulsing in Shiro’s hand. Keith wants to be overwhelmed and that is something Shiro can give him.

“That’s it,” Shiro murmurs encouragement as he comes. “Yes, show me.”

Keith tries to catch his breath, but he’s so hot it feels like a fever, but can’t be. Feeling poorly certainly never felt like this.

Shiro fawns over him as he lies naked and undone in Shiro’s embrace. The angel is licking come from his fingertips, making pleased sounds at the taste.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Keith mutters, and feels bad immediately when Shiro freezes behind his mostly-cleaned fingers.

Keith can’t explain anything right now, least of all how positively sinful that image is, forever burned into his mind. He’s never been one for words; pulling Shiro down to taste sex on his tongue will have to do. Keith moans into his mouth as he’s hit with his own salty musk on Shiro’s breath. He’ll never be the same after this.

Keith moves his fingers over Shiro’s chest, feeling his muscles, the nub of his nipple. Keith is sated and he’s also not at all— he needs Shiro’s pleasure, too. But thumbing along Shiro’s waistband gives the angel another tremor that doesn’t feel eager like the rest.

“May I?” Keith asks.

“I—” Shiro goes still, like he always does when he’s thinking very hard. “It isn’t the same for me, Keith.”

Keith takes that in. “It can be different… I still want to. I want to touch you.”

Shiro huffs a little, disparaging laugh. “I think I’m nervous?” Keith kisses the corner of his mouth in answer, pulling a sweet little whine from Shiro’s throat. “Keith, I… I’m not a man. Not as you.”

It’s not a confession Keith expected, but it isn’t shocking, either. Keith doesn’t know what to say, because he never really does. He just needs to find another way than words.

“Shiro,” Keith breathes against his mouth, kissing him long and slow. His thumb carves along Shiro’s hipbone, digging in and startling a moan from Shiro’s lungs. Keith smiles into the kiss, feeling the shape of an answer in that alone. “I said you’re perfect.”

“But I can’t—”

Keith cups his fingers over Shiro’s mouth. “We can. Where’s your imagination?” He watches the storm in Shiro’s eyes as Keith slots a thigh between his, the angel’s surprise melting his resistance. Shiro’s eyes flutter and so does the fan of his wing as Keith’s thigh makes contact with his body.

Keith holds still like that, wanting, waiting. “We can, Shiro. But only if you want this, too.”

Shiro’s eyes, when they open, are twin hurricanes. His jaw has a stubborn set to it Keith isn’t sure he has seen.

“I want everything with you, Keith. Everything.”

Keith has never been in love before. He doesn’t know how this may be different, or if it’s always like this: his world collapsing down to the awe in Shiro’s face and the sweet thrum of his racing heart.

“I’ll take care of you,” Keith says. He means forever, but he’ll start right now.

Keith rolls the angel down onto the bed, moving over him. It’s a relief, how the draft floats down his overheated spine, and even still the cool winter night hardly touches him. Shiro slides his enormous hand over Keith’s sweat-slick skin, holding him at the waist.

Keith lets his thigh drag against the join of Shiro’s thighs. The angel’s body is smooth, but his back still arches when Keith moves against him with purpose. Keith starts kissing down his throat and over Shiro’s generous chest, all that skin he’s been memorising since his arrival. Mouthing over the scarring at Shiro’s shoulder, peppering kisses everywhere he can reach, while Shiro moans low and dreamily.

“Love touching you,” Keith whispers. He feels shy with his words, but Shiro deserves to know. He’s rewarded with a delicious shudder, feathers shivering with it. Keith finds his eyes. “Undress for me?”

There’s no hesitation this time, Shiro reaching the push the waistband down. Keith helps, tugging his bottoms away, kissing along the hollow of Shiro’s hips and down his inner thigh, then crawling back to stretch over the angel— his angel— skin to heated skin.

Keith sighs in pleasure, cheek pressed to Shiro’s chest where he settles. But that’s nothing to the thick sound of Shiro’s voice as he holds Keith tight to his body, their legs tangling. Keith tucks his hands beneath the angel’s shoulders and shifts his weight, rutting his still-soft cock against Shiro’s belly, grinding up with his thigh.

Shiro keens. It’s a new sound and beautiful. But Keith finds it isn’t his hips but his _hands_ , wandering from Shiro’s corded back to the join of his wings. Keith gives the feathers there an experimental brush.

Shiro writhes with a choked gasp.

“Is this alright?”

“No one has ever—”

Keith can’t help but smile as he teases that tender place again. “I want to.”

The angel nods hastily, trembling, holding his breath.

Keith pushes up to kneel. “Turn over?”

Shiro obeys in a hurry, Keith ducking under his wing as he stretches out on his stomach. Relaxing with his wings draped at his side, his backside is a perfect peach glowing in the lamplight. Keith takes in the sight with quiet awe, the naked angel in his bed, waiting, craving Keith’s touch. He can’t quite believe it, but he’s grateful.

Keith starts by caressing Shiro’s thighs and sliding up over that perfect behind. He settles over Shiro’s low back and the angel hums lightly, welcoming his weight and the hug of Keith’s knees astride his ribs.

There are feathers everywhere. Keith hardly knows where to begin. He traces his fingers down through the long secondaries as far to the side as he can reach, ruffling through the feathered edges and giving Shiro sweet chills. Keith imagines the sensation like someone combing fingers through his hair, but he doesn’t want to ask just yet; he wants to let Shiro feel. Each time Keith brings his hands up to start again, he begins a little higher, a little closer to the heat of Shiro’s body.

As Keith approaches the top of his wing, Shiro murmurs something into the pillow, his wings flexing, curling inward. Keith feels beneath the feathers the shift of muscle and tendon over bone.

“Is that good?” Keith asks in a low voice.

“Yes,” Shiro answers breathily, swallowing his tongue as Keith works his grip deeper. _“Keith,”_ he moans. Keith’s cock twitches at the sound, hanging heavily at Shiro’s spine. He wants to taste that sound on Shiro’s lips.

Keith inches higher, thighs sweaty and slick from Shiro’s heat, bending over him to kiss the knot at the top of Shiro’s spine. Chest pillowed on feathers, Keith feels every tremor as Shiro arches up, breathing fast.

“Precious,” Keith whispers, fingers raking deep, nuzzling his face down until hot feathers rustle against his cheeks. Shiro whimpers.

Keith’s about to ask what feels best— he’ll do anything for Shiro— but then he has a thought he needs to try. He remembers the ruffle of down under his wing where it joins with his skin.

Slowly, Keith slips one hand down to the tips of his feathers, sliding back up in the space between. Shiro takes a sharp breath. Before Keith can even hesitate, he feels the wings arching underneath him, opening for his touch.

“Oh,” Keith sighs, hooking his chin over the top of Shiro’s wing to kiss his back, his face aflame and smiling. The joy feels too big for his chest. “Is that for me, love?”

_Love._

“Please,” Shiro answers softly. Then even softer, “always for you.”

Keith presses his sweaty temple to Shiro’s back and moves his other hand, sliding both palms in time up Shiro’s ribs, his knuckles grazing. He turns his palms up and drags his fingers through the silky feathered heat he finds. He can hardly hear Shiro’s moan over his own.

Keith’s hips shift unconsciously, moving against Shiro’s back as his searching hands pull more lewd sounds out of the angel’s musical voice. The slide is sweat-slick and precariously good.

Shiro bites one of Keith’s pillows, but it does nothing for keeping his moans inside. They keep overflowing, rippling out of him.

He’s losing his centre, and finding it again and again as Keith takes him apart with skilled fingers. It’s the same skill Shiro first loved in the boy when he saw him passing, his exquisite attention.

Shiro’s wings shudder again and curl, and Keith huffs a breath of fondness at his nape, rocking his cock slowly over Shiro’s backbone. His pleasure is a labyrinth and Keith keeps winding deeper, undaunted by all he doesn’t know. He’ll find his way.

_You can overwhelm me._

_So, so easily._

Shiro gasps, pleading for Keith to move faster. He’s calling the boy’s name over and over. Distantly, he hears Keith groan, feels his hips stutter, but the way Keith’s grip spasms floods all of Shiro’s senses.

The sudden arch of his spine doesn’t buck Keith off, but it could well have. Keith clings to his wings with a cry of surprise, tightening his thighs high at his waist.

“Keith, _Keith—”_

The boy is shaking over him with exertion and ecstasy, fingers curling through his feathers and around his heart. He wonders if their edges are blurring. It feels like it. Shiro holds Keith inside him and can’t contain it all.

Shiro cries out. Like a spent star, he’s collapsing and exploding with light. Keith groans with hot breath at his ear, hips jerking as he hangs on tight.

Keith’s forehead rests heavily at the top of his spine as he falls still, panting desperate breaths. They become whole again, and separate, piece by piece.

Into the quiet between them, Keith sucks in a sharp breath. Shiro startles, mind racing with myriad fears. Is the room on fire? Is Keith hurt? He’s never lost control like this, anything could happen.

“Fuck, I didn’t think,” Keith whispers, “it was an accident, I’m so sorry—”

“Shh,” Shiro hushes him, twisting to see what has the boy upset. He can’t see what Keith is frowning down at, only his horrified expression. “Keith, what’s the matter?”

“I—” Keith swallows. “I came on your wings.”

“So?”

Keith’s expression fractures, half grimace, half mad grin. He bites his lip.

“So… I’m not going to hell for that?” he asks, grabbing his discarded shirt and attempting to mop up where he spilled.

“No,” Shiro answers. He tries to stay focused as Keith’s soothing touch washes over him again. “Don’t worry. Hell is a totally human invention.”

Keith startles. “Oh,” he mutters, studying Shiro’s face in profile. “Why do I get the feeling you really weren’t supposed to tell me that?”

Shiro purses his lips. “Interesting time to become concerned with heaven’s law.”

“Don’t care about heaven,” Keith huffs, giving up on his mopping with a scrunched up nose. The expression still looks a little guilty. “I care about you.”

“Keith,” Shiro breathes his name. He wills the spill away with a tremor of his wings, seeing angelic light flare in the boy’s wide eyes. “See, no harm done. And besides, I liked it.”

Keith flushes. “The… come on your wings?”

“Everything,” Shiro laughs lightly. “Everything you do. Everything you are. Now come here, please.”

Keith clamours off of his back so Shiro can manoeuvre and turn, holding his arm wide in invitation. Tucking himself along Shiro’s side, Keith pillows his head on the angel’s chest.

“You’re overheated,” Shiro says. It isn’t a question, sliding his fingers over Keith’s sweat-soaked skin. Keith hums his agreement, clearly unwilling to do anything about it. Shiro fans his wings and tries to withhold some of his burning heat. It’s worth the effort to feel Keith sigh and settle.

“What are you thinking about?” Shiro asks.

Keith hums. “You looked like… shooting stars,” he answers, grasping for what he really wants to say.

Shiro kisses him— his forehead, the bridge of his nose, and his lips when Keith moves to offer them, too. It’s slow and lingering. Keith tastes like salt and pleasure.

Shiro thinks of meteors streaking through the atmosphere, caught in another body’s gravity. That is how it feels.

“I thought you couldn’t be more beautiful,” Keith says just before he drifts off to sleep.

Waking, Shiro stretches. He reaches over the bed, for what he’s not sure, until he blinks his eyes open and knows he’s searching for Keith.

The boy is at the canvas in a dressing gown, dabbing the brush in quick, deliberate strokes.

Shiro rises, going to Keith’s side. He suspected, and still what he finds roots him to the spot.

Keith completed the painting. It’s the one from before, of Shiro on the roof, but he’s changed it. Shiro’s hair is streaked white in front. The scar slashed across his nose is the same shade as his full lips, the mirror of his reserved smile. The brushwork is expressive, confident, a dozen colours shaping the planes of Shiro’s face like he’s made not of flesh but of sunrise.

Keith is finishing work at his shoulder, his tunic torn like it was on the night he arrived. It might’ve looked tragic, but here it’s triumphant. Not an instrument of heaven, a broken toy, but a lover fighting his way home whatever the cost.

It feels like that, too.

Keith hums, glancing back at Shiro where he’s hovering, watching so closely. The boy isn’t shy, not now. He’s radiant.

“Incredible,” Shiro breathes, his voice unsteady. “Keith, is that what you see?”

Keith steps back, leaning into Shiro’s chest and taking in the sight of his work from a new distance. He nods once. That’s how Shiro knows it’s just right.

Keith emerges from the shower, delighting in walking naked through the flat, like there isn’t a dusting of new snow in the road. He feels Shiro’s eyes on his skin and likes it. After years of trying to escape everyone’s notice, it’s something to want to be seen.

Shiro freshened up, too, while Keith was showering. He wasn’t immediately keen on trying out the human method of bathing, perhaps on account of his wingspan. It would be a squeeze. Still, Keith tells him he’ll wash his back for him later, if Shiro changes his mind.

Keith can tell by his blush he’s still thinking about it, minutes later.

The morning is effervescent. There’s no frost on their windows, not with Shiro here. Keith flicks on the radio while the kettle heats, finding Shiro swaying on his feet to a popular tune. Keith laughs and Shiro does, too.

“I used to watch people dance.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Shiro ducks his head like he’s shy about it, but he’s brave enough to sway into Keith’s space with his hand firm at Keith’s mid-back. It’s more of a hug than a dancing frame, Keith suspects, but he goes anyway and tries not to step on the angel’s toes. He’d let Shiro lead him anywhere.

Dancing becomes a gentle sway, just an excuse to be close and hold on.

There’s time enough to make a brew and tuck up against the headboard, wrapped up in his wing with two mugs still steaming. Keith hands Shiro the bigger one, just before the flash.

White. _White white white_ floods his senses _,_ and with it a roaring silence.

Keith feels the bottom drop out of his stomach, but he’s not falling; he’s held, plastered to the angel’s chest. Keith cowers, eyes shut tight in terror, but he won’t let go of Shiro.

He hears his angel’s voice.

“Kuro, wait—”

“What have you done,” comes the reply, and Keith shudders. He knows that voice, too, but not the threat in it.

“He is innocent. It’s me you want—”

_“—NO.”_

Keith doesn’t remember turning, only now feeling the way Shiro pins him sharply to his chest with unnatural strength. The endless white is gone, the raging silence only a terrible memory, but there’s still an intruder in Keith’s kitchen. He wears Shiro’s face with vacant golden eyes.

“Don’t you touch him,” Keith warns, bristling all over. “I won’t let you.”

“Keith, please,” Shiro whispers into his hair, soothing, which only makes Keith burn brighter. How dare he act like everything is alright, it’s not—

“Charming,” the intruder says dryly, studying Keith like a pet who’s done an interesting trick. “You would defy heaven.”

Shiro growls at the threat, but to Keith the answer is simple.

“Yes.”

His look is cold, unfamiliar on that face. “The human believes in your goodness,” Kuro says, “You would exploit that weakness?”

Shiro goes rigid behind Keith. “It isn’t, we- he chose—”

“Can he choose what he doesn’t understand? You know better. Have you no shame?”

Keith thinks he might hear Shiro’s teeth grind. “And you would judge what you can’t understand. Not from on high,” Shiro scolds. “I know what no angel knows, what he has shown me.”

Kuro clicks his tongue. “And you expected no consequences?”

“Stop this,” Keith struggles defiantly, but Shiro holds him fast. “Leave him alone!”

“I’m staying,” Shiro says, and the room falls into silence.

“Not an option, Shirogane,” the other replies slowly. “You will meddle again and you know it.”

“Then take it,” Shiro shouts back, “take everything. You’ll have nothing to fear from me. Then I’ll stay.”

Keith twists in Shiro’s hold, straining to see his face.

Kuro is equally surprised. “You would be mortal. Suffering, sickness, aging, death. Only a man. There’s no going back.”

But Shiro isn’t looking at the other angel anymore. He’s looking at Keith.

“Shiro?”

“Keith,” Shiro sighs, his smile pained as he lowers his hand from Keith’s back. “I’m sorry that falling means dragging you with me—”

“I won’t let you go.” Keith reaches and threads his fingers through Shiro’s. “Shiro, please,” his voice strains. “I love you.”

Shiro’s eyes dance with new light, or maybe tears. He mouths the words back, like there’s no air left in his lungs. _I love you._

“Stand back,” Kuro says, and Keith turns on him sharply.

“He wants to stay—”

“—You need to let go, Keith,” Shiro says in warning, “you must.” But he won’t.

“No, Shiro!”

The flash is a brilliant, crackling white that slices like lightening from above. For a terrifying moment, Shiro is lit from within, lifted off his feet. His head is tipped skyward, his eyes like searchlights, vacant white. His wings open wide, consumed in white flame. Keith feels his feathers like a burning whip, but he doesn’t let go.

He’s there when Shiro collapses to his knees, his naked body slumping against Keith’s chest.

Crying Shiro’s name, Keith’s heart thunders almost too loudly to hear, to think, but he finds that Shiro’s heart is thrumming strong and steady beneath his fingertips. He’s unconscious in Keith’s arms, but he’s okay. He’ll be okay.

The angel, Kuro, is gone without a word. But what is there left to say?

Shiro gave up heaven to live as any man.

Keith tucks his nose close to Shiro’s neck, murmuring every plea that he can think of, every aching wish. He strokes his fingers through Shiro’s all-white hair and holds on.

Shiro folds the newspaper, ink on his fingers, and smiles. The young man inside the ice cream shop was too loud, his voice grating, but Shiro enjoyed that, too, and wished him a pleasant afternoon.

Shiro found work at the library. It's nothing glamorous but he likes to be helpful, and he has quite a deep memory for mankind's archive of knowledge even if it's only used for shelving. When no mortal is looking, he peeks at texts he's only read over another's shoulder, and likes the feeling of turning the pages himself. 

At the grocer, he picks out bread and cheese, vegetables they need, and some firm pears he can ripen up at home. He loves fruit, even more than chocolate. Keith tells him he’s in for a treat come summer.

Shiro greets the other like him in the checkout line and they talk about the match, not heaven. Life is too short for regrets, but Shiro doesn’t have any to speak of.

It’s raining on his walk and Shiro is still enchanted with things like cold and jackets, umbrellas, puddles! He knew what those things were, but he didn’t _know,_ not like he does now. When he crosses the bridge and is nearing their street, he folds his umbrella away just to feel the rain on his face.

“Baby, I’m home,” Shiro calls from the door, as though Keith can’t see him plainly from his desk in their single room. Shiro's only had a wage for a couple of weeks, but someday, maybe, they’ll get a bigger flat, one with better light for Keith’s work— though Shiro thinks he’d always miss this one, where they fell in love.

Keith looks casually devastating, with new glasses slipping down his nose and paint spots here and there, Shiro’s sweatshirt pooling in his lap and hair tied in a messy bun. He smiles like the sun.

Then he wrinkles his nose in confusion. “Why are you soaked? That’s what the umbrella is for, babe.”

Sack deposited on the counter, Shiro turns to pull Keith close.

“Careful, paint,” Keith laughs and shakes his head, like it’s hopeless. It is.

“I don’t care,” Shiro says against his lips.

“Well, I do,” Keith snorts. “You have exactly two sets of clothes,” he reminds.

Shiro wants to tease that Keith is wearing one of those very same, but he can’t be bothered, bursting to kiss him again. His hand comes up to cradle Keith’s face, thumb grazing the fiery red mark where his wing lashed him. He hates that Keith was hurt, but he can’t regret where it led them.

“I love you so much today.”

Keith flushes. “You say that every day.”

“I know,” Shiro laughs. “I waited an eternity to say that to someone, you know.”

And Keith knows this, too. 

“I love you right now,” Keith says before he kisses him. “And now.” Another kiss. “Now.” A third. Shiro feels his toes curling. He loves that he knows what that means.

> _The image that we created will be with me when I die. I will have lived within it. Only my amazement at the two of us, my amazement at man and woman, has turned me into a human being.  
>    
>  I know now what no angel knows. (Ich weiß jetzt, was kein Engel weiß.)  
>    
>  — Wings of Desire_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/bioplast_hero)! ❤️🖤 [Other sheith by this author](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=10209319&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&exclude_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=17504241&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=T&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&user_id=bioplast_hero)
> 
> I love comments of any kind, including emoji dances and keysmashes— all welcome. Thank you for reading!


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